


bar hopping

by macha



Series: Georgia on My Mind [4]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-17
Updated: 2007-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:45:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macha/pseuds/macha





	bar hopping

###  _A01.04.01 Age of Earth: in memory, at the bar._

and the name of the tale is:

### bar hopping

The two of us were sitting in a demon bar in Cleveland. Waiting for Buffy, yah, same old. Story of my life, in that period. Ten thousand Slayers, but she was still The Slayer. Or sometimes, depending on the company, and whether they'd noticed my arrival, the Bitch Queen of the Hellmouth. Georgia made herself small enough to sit at a table. She never tries to pass, but even a Courtanche demon's not stupid enough to challenge any dragon, and they've got nothing but back brain to work with. She's small and cute on these occasions, but then so's Buffy, and the perils of going with that perception are just about the same. So it wasn't long before everyone on every continent knew she could go bigger (much, much bigger) with a little provocation. Georgia, I mean: everyone already knew that about Buffy. As a result we weren't real popular in any demon bar, but on the other hand nobody was too inclined to step up and throw us out, so we never had any trouble getting a table, five or six pitchers to get us started, and a nice no-fault zone around us.

Georgia and I were already good mates, or I'd never have risen to it when she asked after my other family. Probably, she was trolling to see what I thought about that Angel thing, but I wasn't going there. I knew I shouldn't have done it, see, I had that crystal clear at the time, but I was feeling a bit pissy and I thought I'd teach the Old Man a lesson when I withheld that key. But instead he taught me another, because when I went back for him he was already gone.

So I pretended to misunderstand her. And instead, for some reason, not much wanting to talk about Dru most likely, I started in to tell her stories about my great-grand sire, and her idea of a bit of fun. Since after all she's the original Dragon Lady, Darla, still legendary in the opium dens of San Francisco and Shanghai, and near as I knew still sitting on a hoard somewhere herself. She liked her view, and she planned to live forever, so she was always salting money and jewels and fancy weaponry away in bank vaults all around the world as a hedge against what she liked to call a sunny day. So after a while that conversation segued into the Aurelian order that the Master was always on about, and how the business end of that was always taking her away. Only thing that ever made Angel jealous.

Then Buffy came, the bar cleared out predictably, we switched onto mixed drinks to keep her company, and Buffy told a few Darla and The Master stories of her own, and eventually we all went on patrol together, and nary a villain could we find to fight. But that might have had something to do with the fact that Buffy and I had our arms around one another's shoulders and were singing "Mack the Knife" at the top of our lungs, with Georgia coming in on all the orchestral parts. Right, the good old days.

Time passed, or seemed to pass, though whether it ever passes for Georgia is a harder question than it looks. About a year later there we were again, waiting for the Slayer in another demon dive, this time in Madagascar. And out of nowhere Georgia started to tell me she'd been looking into it and there was a lot more to know, about both Darla and that whole Aurelian thing.

Just then The Slayer arrived looking a little the worse for wear, demon guts smeared across her favorite shirt, and a bit grim in aspect. Which completely emptied the bar, so in the absence of a bartender I grabbed a few bottles and some shot glasses. And Georgia, plainly looking for a neutral subject, tells me she's found Darla's stash. Maybe a hoard has a come hither look, if you're a dragon. I wouldn't know, since not much ever used to stick to me.

Right about this moment, Buffy announced "we're losing", and the conversation changed course. By the end of the evening we're going down the middle of the street arm in arm again and singing "Pirate Jenny", though Buffy's claiming the lyric sheet says Pirate Buffy, and Georgia's doing not only the orchestral parts, but also what she seems to think is a Shakespearean line that goes "a ship, my kingdom for a ship". Right, the not so good old days.

Because we were losing. It wasn't so much BigBads, though Wolfram&Hart often turned out to be the attorneys of record. It was that larger question of sustainable life. Soon she was reduced to fighting rearguard actions, trying to keep the Slayers safe. And demons began to look, like cockroaches, as though they might be the natural inheritors of the kingdom, given that they didn't give a flying fuck about the sustainable part, or often the life part either.

So another year down the road those demons were breeding like cockroaches, and holding end of the world parties, and doing the tarantella. Just waiting for the humans to die out, Giles liked to say. And the old ones to return.

But on that anniversary we never got to the bar, because right on cue the dragons came, and everything turned to red piss in a bottle, and we just couldn't hold the line.


End file.
